Page:Men of Might.djvu/40

 they lay for three days, fed by faithful relations and shepherds. Abu Bekr was afraid, perhaps more for his friend than for himself. Their pursuers were on all sides, and they might be discovered at any moment. 'There be many that fight against us,' said he, 'and we are but two.' 'Not so,' replied Mahomet, 'we are but two, but God is in the midst a third.' Legend states that a spider spun her web over the cave's mouth, and that a tree grew there miraculously, on which the brooding wood-pigeons sat undisturbed, to show to the pursuers that no one could be hiding within.

On the fourth day they mounted two camels which had been provided, and in four days more looked down from a ridge of rocks upon Medina, lying amid palm-groves and orchards, with its promise of safety and peace. There the new converts received them with joy; and so ended the Hejira, or Flight of Mahomet, from which the Mahometans reckon their years, as we do from the Nativity. The date was June 28th, in the year of our Lord 622.

And here, before relating the story of the last years of Mahomet's life, spent mainly at Medina, it may be as well to explain a little more fully the religion which he taught and the method by which it was made known to the world. The inspired book of the Mahometans is called the Koran, containing 114 chapters of different lengths. It is supposed to consist of revelations made direct to Mahomet, and written down by his followers on palm-leaves, white stones, pieces of leather, shoulder-blades of animals; all being subsequently collected and preserved in a chest.

The unity of God is clearly asserted in the Koran in